How long to keep trying to find a treatment

[Terra]

Hello, I am wondering if anyone can share any experiences similar to mine…

 Mary has just turned 6. For the past 8 months or so she’s had a gradually deteriorating condition that our vet hasn’t been able to diagnose. She has a wet nose and sneezes a lot, also dribbles and spends a lot of time appearing to chew on nothing. She does slightly better on Metacam. A recent nose swab came back normal, and there are no visible problems with her teeth; X-rays last winter didn’t show anything wrong.  She also has sore hocks (I think due to the nature of her fur and a slightly awkward gait), which at least stop getting worse with topical steroids. She was recently widowed for the second time, and is a very anxious creature – she spends a lot of time with a high respiratory rate for no obvious reason (it’s not infection), and hates any change to her routine, or being given medicines etc.

All that said, most days she’s still got a great appetite (including hay and grass), and is active and interested in life.

 I’m torn up over whether I should continue having tests and trying treatments, given her frailty and anxious nature. Our current vet seems to be out of ideas, but there is an exotics specialist a bit further away from us. But travelling further seems like a long time to have her under acute stress for (she hates going out of the house), especially now she’s on her own.

 I’m not looking for advice on her specific medical problems, but rather stories of what other people have done or might do in this kind of situation with regards to keeping on taking her to vets and trying interventions. My primary goal is to keep her comfortable in the time she has left, as I’ve accepted that she’s old and increasingly fragile. She enjoys my company, which she might not if I keep stressing her out. One thing I am sure about is that I won’t risk having her under general anaesthetic again, as she was only just strong enough to recover from one six months ago. A vet might have other suggestions for tests/treatments (although I don’t have any ideas as to what they might be), and I don’t want to end up feeling more guilt over not trying than from what probably amounts to over-medicalising the deterioration of an elderly bun (I know 6 isn’t that old, but evidently it is for Mary).

 I know I keep contradicting myself. I’m really uncertain of how to make the most of the time we have left together, as she’s very precious to me. Thanks for reading.

[Bunny House]

I have a bun who is a lion head and had poops the size of my newzealand which I told multiple vet but they shrugged it off. Fast forward 3 months ago, originally had a sneeze and nasal discharge so got antibiotics and didn’t work so we went to stronger ones and ended up killing all his gut flora and caused him to go into stasis and for a month he was like this, he finally went septic so I brought him in and they hospitalized him. He can Home a week later and started recovery. There’s a whole lot of details I’ll spare you but you can look at my previous posts- his name is patches. So I got fed up with my old vet for saying they can’t see him for a er a couple of days ago so I visit an older vet I have used because he was getting worse, and that vet also said Penelope had no ear infection and when I take both in, both had a ear infection but Penelope had both ear canals swollen shut poor baby was in so much pain, no wonder she didn’t want to eat. But for patches, I told her and showed her his recent poop(freaking huge with jelly attached to it) and I said could it be mega colon since it was huge and showed signs of colon irritation,and she says it seems like it since his gut molting drugs keep him pooping and as soon as the other vet took him off of it he went back into stasis. So i know my story isn’t like yours but it often pays to shop around, yes one vet might be more expensive that the one you’re using but my experience, find a vet who likes to hear your concerns and is open to thinking outside of the box and not following textbook. We now know he will be on motility drugs the rest of his life but we also know what is wrong. Sometimes when you have someone looking at a problem for so long, they get so into it that they cant think differently and it’s best to have a fresh set of eyes look at the situation.

I hope Mary gets better ❤️

[LBJ10]

Is Mary a large rabbit? It’s true that 6 years isn’t very old, but giant breeds have a shorter lifespan (on average) compared to smaller breeds. It’s similar to what you see in dogs.

Hmm… if she is eating and pooping, then it may not be worth stressing her our unnecessarily. One of my buns, Wooly, has chronic issues due to tooth roots. There really isn’t much that can be done, unfortunately. They could pull his teeth, but then he wouldn’t have any teeth. Or they could do surgery on the tooth roots at the vet school in another state (= several hours away). Even with that, there are no guarantees. It isn’t something that has a high success rate (or so I have been told). Wooly has chronic sneezing and a runny nose. Sometimes bacteria grows and it turns into an infection. It has spread to his ear as well. He has facial paralysis and poor drainage in that ear and tear duct. We opted to just treat his symptoms and accept that he has some special needs. He has lived with this condition for many years now. If he has an active infection, then we treat with antibiotics. I have the vet clean his ear periodically. I give him artificial tears eye drops. All of these things just treat the symptoms and not the cause. But he is still active, enthusiastic for food, and has no issues in the poop department. So we just leave him be. Sure, he’s a little lopsided. But I think he has adapted well.

[Terra]

Thanks so much for your replies.

Bunny House, I’m sorry you had that experience with vet who wasn’t paying attention. Our vet has said to me a couple of times that Mary might have megacolon because she has often had stasis, but her poops have always been on the small side so I get the impression he kind of wanted to have a rare condition to look at… (On the other hand my other rabbit has giant poos but a remarkably healthy digestive system.) I’m glad Penelope has found drugs that work, and a human who loves her so much.

LBJ10, Mary isn’t big – about 2kg/4.4lb. She’s also not brachycephalic, and has up ears, so doesn’t have those risk factors either; and has always had healthy teeth above the gumline. One of the suspicions is that she has tooth root problems, which another X-ray might show, but I don’t want to have to sedate her or put her in a crush just to get a diagnosis about which nothing can be done other than pain relief (I think I said before, I don’t think she’s strong enough for surgery now). I have also wondered if she has a mild paralysis on one side of her face, because she does exclusively dribble from one side of her mouth, although she doesn’t have the normal symptoms listed online. I’m glad that Wooly does well despite his problems. Bunnies are so resilient for such fragile creatures.

Following your stories and some more thinking (in which I concluded that I’m no longer sure I trust our current vet so much with anything other than simple problems), I’m going to get in touch with the exotics specialist vets. I’ll make sure they’re aware that I don’t want to be bringing her in more often than absolutely necessary, so they can be prepared to draw bloods or anything else that might be necessary on the day. Best case scenario, they can figure out what’s wrong; worst case, I can at least use the opportunity to get a better palliative care plan in place for her. I’d also like them to check her kidney function to see if she can have a higher dose of metacam – our current vet put her on a small dose in case her kidney function is poor, but if it’s still okay then it’s better to give her more pain relief at this point.

Thank you again for taking the time to reply

[Bunny House]

I know it can suck that you can’t trust your vet anymore with the care of your pet, especially if they are sick.

A CBC, urine test and even an X-ray(you can send your previous ones to them so they can interpret them) that should give you a really good overall look at how she is doing. I hope that vet can help you

[Terra]

Hello, this is just an update in case anyone is interested.

Mary saw a rabbit specialist vet today and she didn’t give the impression that Mary is quite as ill as I’d thought (I really wasn’t certain she’d survive the car trip as she gets so scared, but she did okay). We have a course of doxycycline (not one I’ve used in rabbits before) and another appointment in a fortnight. We’re doubling the dose of Metacam for the time being too.

She has the beginnings of some dental issues and may need her incisors trimmed in the near future but for the moment, since she’s got a good appetite, we’re stabilising the dribbling/wet nose problem first. The vet has recommended moving her onto a dried food that I’ve not heard or read of before – Supreme Fibafast. She’s hopeful this will also help Mary’s teeth stay nice.

Apparently Mary’s slightly overweight. I thought she was fine, as she’s the same weight she’s been since she was about 10 months old, but I guess she’s lost some muscle and gained some fat since then. (This also means my other rabbit is just plain overweight…oops, I feel really bad about that.)

The vet also mentioned about looking for another bondmate for Mary in the longer term, which implies she thinks that Mary has lots of time left. I really wasn’t expecting that so I’m feeling encouraged at the moment. Fingers crossed she responds well to the antibiotics.

[Whiskers]

Sorry to hear Mary is still sick, but every so glad she is on treatment. Sounds like you have knowledge now and a starting place to get her to 100%. I am sure recovery will still take some time, but you and her will see each other through this.

The vet suggesting a bondmate is very promising. Congratulations on that.

May you both recover quickly. Enjoy some bunny snuggles and please keep us posted.

[LBJ10]

That’s great Terra! Bunnies certainly surprise us sometimes. With Wooly, I’m constantly worrying about him and thinking something is really wrong. But the vet never seems all that worried about him. He just is what he is.

[Bunny House]

I hope the new treatment works

[Author]

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